


A Hallucination is a species of Reality

by Basilintime



Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Hallucinations, M/M, Post-PRU, Post-Trauma, that aren't real hallucinations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-23
Updated: 2019-01-23
Packaged: 2019-10-14 20:14:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17515223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Basilintime/pseuds/Basilintime
Summary: Newton has managed to re-emerge after the Precursor's hold loosens with the lack of continued drift with Alice. As he's waiting, locked in a chair and disoriented, to see what his fate might be he get a visit from a specter of someone he believes he's killed; Hermann Gottlieb.





	A Hallucination is a species of Reality

**Author's Note:**

> This is for the wonderful Regan! 
> 
> Fic Title is from a quote: “A hallucination is a species of reality, as capable of teaching you as a videotape about Kilimanjaro or anything else that falls through your life.”  
> ― Terence McKenna

          The lights were too bright. Newton could feel them burning against his eyelids as he sat. He'd asked several times already for them to turn them down but so far no one had listened. Newton wasn't even sure if anyone was listening anymore. 

          It felt like it had been an unusually long break between interrogations this time. He wasn't entirely sure if this was a loss of interest in what he, and by proxy, the Precursors had to say or if he was just becoming achingly more aware of those spaces between. He had surfaced slowly over the last few weeks. The Precursor's hold on him had waned with the lack of drifts reinforcing it. It had been long stretches of time punctuated by people coming in to ask him questions, demand answers he didn't really hold. His head was a jumbled mess of confused memories and flashing moments at the best of times. A terrible nightmare at the worst. 

          So, when the lights finally dimmed and he open his eyes to find Hermann standing expectantly in front of him he knew. He knew he'd dived back into the murky in between headspace where reality was covered in a film of half dreamed up recollections. Because Hermann couldn't be there. Not really. Not physically. Not when Newton had choked the life out of him in the labs of Shao Industry as he tried, god he really had tried, to fight against their hold on him. 

          Somebody laughed, a hollow and bitter sound that seemed to be wrenched up from strained vocal chords, and Imaginary Hermann's expression shifted just slightly. Newton realized he'd been the one to laugh because, of course, his mind would play this trick on him. His greatest sin. Well, some would argue the attempted destruction of the world qualified, but this was his greatest personal sin. Killing the man he had loved. Still loved. Probably always would. 

          "The bruises are a nice touch. Good reminder of what I did. Always good at filling in the details, brain." Newton was surprised by his own voice. Frowned and swallowed against the clumsiness of his tongue. The fact that they were his words that came spilling out hadn't lost its novelty yet. Hermann look confused for a moment as he stepped a little closer and Newton pulled back some into the uncomfortable chair that had been his new prison. 

          "It wasn't you, Newton, I know that. You did not hurt me, _they_ did." Hermann seemed troubled by his discomfort with him as his steps fell short. All those little details filled in from his memories and his mind's ability to paint a pretty picture. His damn eyelashes casting shadows on his cheeks, the way he gripped and fumbled with his cane, that stiff upper lip. Newton dropped his eyes, felt the well of pain rise in his chest because he wouldn't see any of that ever again. Not the real thing at least. Maybe he should take solace in his hallucinations. 

          "Not all the details are right, are they? Hermann wouldn't be soft platitudes; he'd be fierce arguments. I appreciate my own capacity to comfort myself though." Newton forced himself to look up into the face of his guilt; found Hermann looking back at him with an expression of mild horror. "I don't want...don't deserve comfort from you. I...oh God, Hermann, I...I wish Shao had shot me. I wish it had been me and not you that had gotten deleted from the world." 

          Newton had to drop his eyes down towards the floor as he saw that soft expression harden a little. He must really be losing it, psyche cracking and shattering around him. He should lean into it; take a fist to that mental mirror and let if crumble. Live in this permanent make believe where he'd at least be able to talk to that splintered bit of Hermann that had broken off in his mind thousands of drifts ago. 

          "Newton...what do you mean 'deleted from the world'?" Hermann appeared in his line of sight; had moved closer and lowered himself down to look up at him. Oh good, his hallucination wasn't letting him off the hook completely. That, Newton deserved. He deserved it like a knife in the gut. It felt like one in his heart. 

          "I hope you know I tried to stop them from killing you. You were always top of their list though-"

          "Newton, are you under the impression that I am-"

          "Number one on the Precursor's Most Wanted. Even before you figured it out-"

          "-dead? I am not dead, Newton-"

          "-they wanted you dead for so long because they could tell. They could tell you were the one thing that might break their hold on me." 

          "Newton!" The loudness of it startled him and Newton fell silent in response. The Precursor’s had been so goddamn loud in his head. Cymbal crashes and organ overtures. Hallucination Hermann had the gall to look apologetic at his flinching response. Newton could feel hands resting on his; they were cold and calloused. More memory. More false sensations. "I am not dead, Newton." 

          "Yeah, you are..." Newton could feel the tears behind his eyes, could feel them threatening to spill over into a flood. What stage of grief was denial? Was it the first? 

          "No, I am not. If I was dead how would I be here speaking with you right now?" Newton blinked rapidly, an impulse to fight those tears, and then he realized there was no point in that. Hermann was a blur as they fell, large and uncontrollable like the sob that pulled itself, heavy and full, from his throat. 

          "You're in my head...a tiny sliver of you left behind. The only thing I have left. A figment. A ghost." Newton tried to reach for him, forgot his bindings that held him in place and tugged forward only to feel the cut of that metal chafe his skin. Hermann reached for him instead, hands cupping his face and tried to clear away his tears. Cool hands soothing grief hot and burning. 

          "No, darling, I am here. They tried but you didn't let them." 

          "I wasn't strong enough to stop them." 

          "You were, Newton, you did." 

          "Please, stop, please. Is someone there? Please..." Newton didn't know what he was asking of whoever might be behind the mirrored glass window. Maybe they could sedate him? Drug him somehow to take this away because this hurt too much. It felt like he was being torn in two, knowing Hermann wasn’t really there. He had snapped. He had crossed that line painted yellow in his mind that laid out the boundaries of sane and insane. Lost and found. Misfired synapses and dying cells. 

          "Dr. Geiszler, listen to me. I am here. I am not dead." There was fire in Hermann's voice now. A plead and a demand. The sobs were a crashing tide against his sore and aching ribs. He would drown in his own loss. He could feel it, that creeping desire to believe his mind's own defenses. Let himself fall into it, this fantasy that the world had been righted. It warred within him. Could he lose himself in a perpetual lie to give his soul some ease or would the truth leak through and sour it? Make it the punishment he deserved?

          "I'm sorry, Hermann, I'm sorry...Please, please give me something to make it go away. I can't...I can't..." He strained against his bindings once more. Fought against them hoping it'd be seen as cause to do as he asked. Hermann continued to shush him, to try and get him to calm down. There was a stark and frightened uncertainty in Hermann's expression now and he snapped his fingers in front of Newton's face. 

          Newton startled a little again but it was a disruption that managed to pull his focus back front and center. He watched with apprehension to see what buttons his mind would push next. Watched as Hermann set his jaw in that way he'd done hundreds of times before; typically leading up to an outbreak of argument. 

          And then Hermann was rushing closer and as Newton realized what his intent was, he simply thought;  _Good, perhaps this will end me..._

          Lips crushed against his in a desperate manner. Lips that were familiar; slightly chaffed and with a lingering hint of citrus clinging to them. A sob he’d been holding back broke free as his mind reeled. Struggled against the knowledge that this couldn't be Hermann and the realization that he couldn't imagine this. That all the times he'd had discussions with that lingering fraction of Hermann in his mind over the years there had never been any replication of this. 

          Newton's perception shattered, coagulated back together and then lysed itself apart once more. He chased after those lips as Hermann pulled away. Opened his eyes to stare up at him, the lights behind him seeming to form a halo. His savior. His saint. His reckoning looking hesitantly at him as Newton tried to pull himself back from existing solely as a thought form and into a human once more.

          Hermann was watching him closely as Newton searched his face. Noted the things he'd missed at first. The healing split in his brow, the circles under his eyes that spoke of fatigue and stressful days. The tremble in his lower lip as, hands still cupping Newton's cheeks, he waited for some sort of sign. A vision that was entirely too grounded in reality. 

          "You're...you're not..." His mind raced, tried to find some way to explain this in contrast to his certainty and memory. His telltale heart was still beating. Had never been buried beneath those floor boards to begin with. Wasn't just in his head. 

          "No, I'm not." Hermann's smile was bright and blindly like those lights. And Newton marveled at its brilliance. Tears welled up fresh though they were driven by disbelief and joy. “I wanted to come see you sooner but I was being barred access until they could determine if you were truly free of them. Safety concerns and all that nonsense.”

          “I think safety concerns may have been a legitimate reason, Hermann,” Newton choked out the words with something that was between a sob and a laugh. Hermann hushed him with another kiss, just as desperate, and just as real and grounding. He wished that he wasn’t still bound to the chair, that he could reach out and wrap his arms around Hermann and feel him solidly there besides him.

          There was no more need for words when Hermann pulled out of the kiss this time; stayed leaning close to him so their foreheads pressed together and he was all that Newton could see. He was all that he wanted to see; his light at the end of a tunnel he never expected to come.


End file.
